Previous Breaking News/2008 Presidential Election

This page contains the items that were once on the "Breaking News" section of the Main Page. The articles are mainly about the 2008 US Presidential Election. last date of Archived news is Nov. 30, 2007. Contains archives from June to Nov. 2007.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama, who's been scolding Hillary Clinton for not hastening the release of records from her time as first lady, says he can't step up and produce his own records from his days in the Illinois state Senate. He says he hasn't got any. [1]

Barack Obama - "There are aspects of Christian tradition that I'm comfortable with and aspects that I'm not. There are passages of the Bible that make perfect sense to me and others that I go, 'Ya know, I'm not sure about that." [2]

Wednesday night's Republican debate in New Hampshire was lively: Tom Tancredo defended the use of what might be called "torture" by liberals; Mitt Romney defended the use of wiretaps for Muslim mosques; but John McCain criticized the use of torture based on the damage to the reputation of the United States and the risk of retaliation against American prisoners of wars (Tancredo replied, American enemies don't need an excuse to torture Americans.)

GOP polling ... shows Fred Thompson stalled or dropping, a situation that has some advisers to Romney and Giuliani fretting because each of those candidates had hoped he would rob primary and caucus votes from the other. 'Thompson is dropping too fast for their good,' said the adviser." [21]

An "I voted for it, but I don't support it" moment for recently announced presidential candidate Fred Thompson. "Thompson, contrary to his current memories, was deeply involved in expanding government restrictions on political speech generally and the ban on issue ads specifically. Yet he told Ingraham 'I voted for all of it,' meaning McCain-Feingold, but said 'I don't support that' provision of it." [27]

"Billing records show that former US SenatorFred Thompson spent nearly 20 hours working as a lobbyist on behalf of a group seeking to ease restrictive federal rules on abortion counseling in the 1990s, even though he recently said he did not recall doing any work for the organization." [28]

CNN'sLas Vegas Post Debate Analysis-- A Clinton Reunion[32] It's hard to have a bad debate performance when: The audience is planted in your favor [33] The questions are planted in your favor [34] The questioners are your supporters The after debate spin room includes 2 former staff members and 1 current campaign analyst

New York Times investigative reporters reveal Hillary Clinton monitored illegal wiretaps in 1992. [42]GOP official remarks "it is rather unbelievable that Clinton would listen in to conversations being conducted by political opponents, but refuse to allow our intelligence agencies to listen in to conversations being conducted by terrorists as they plot and plan to kill us." [43]

Norman Hsu, prominent Clinton fund-raiser and fugitive from justice, was apprehended in Grand Junction, Colorado, at 7:00 p.m. MDT Thursday, September 6. He was on an Amtrak train passing through Grand Junction when he fell ill. He deboarded and was taken to St. Mary's Hospital in Grand Junction, where the FBI promptly placed him under arrest. Clinton campaign representatives have thus far declined to comment. Source: Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.[49] :meanwhile

A three-judge panel will hear the other illegal fundraising case from Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign. [50]Read the indictment

The health care plan proposed by Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards is mandatory. "If you are going to be in the system, you can't choose not to go to the doctor for 20 years. You have to go in and be checked and make sure that you are OK." [64]

John Edwards harshly criticizes Hillary Clinton's fundraising luncheon that brought together big money donors and members of Congress with expertise in homeland security as, "a 'poster child' for what is wrong with Washington and what should never happen again with a candidate running for the highest office in the land" USA Today

HUCKABEE: You know, I love Phyllis Schlafly. In fact, her book, "It's a Choice, Not an Echo," was a great influence on me when I read it as a teenager. And I'm not going to say anything unkind about this lady who has been such a stalwart in the conservative movement. Rather than say, hey, you know, I think Phyllis is wrong, I think Phyllis has just been misinformed. Because she's a good and decent lady who is very principled.

But here's the fact. When I came into office as governor, we had 11 House members out of 100 who were Republican. By the time I left, we had had 30.We had appointees all over the place. We had elections that were won. My PAC that I established gave more money to Republican candidates in Arkansas than did the state party. You know, I worked hard for the party. It's a tough environment. I've been against the headwinds of a very tough, Clinton-led political machine in this state.

But you know what I've done that no other Republican running for president has done? I've beat that political machine of the Clintons, the Democrat Party, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in statewide elections, something nobody else has been able to do.

The Clintons campaigned against me every time I ran, always cordially and respectfully, but they campaigned against me, and I still won in a state that is overwhelmingly, maybe outfitted, if you will, with Clintonistas."

GOP polling ... shows Fred Thompson stalled or dropping, a situation that has some advisers to Romney and Giuliani fretting because each of those candidates had hoped he would rob primary and caucus votes from the other. 'Thompson is dropping too fast for their good,' said the adviser." [82]

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared, "What I do want to see, and where I think the American people are today, is to see a conservative jurist on the Supreme Court and to see Roe v. Wade overturned."[86] Experts predict that Justice John Paul Stevens will be the next to retire, and that filling his vacancy will decide the fate of Roe v. Wade.

Ron Paul

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul: "There is something rather amazing about the Internet .... I've been used to delivering a message very similar to what I'm delivering tonight for many, many years and not getting a whole lot of responses. And all of a sudden, there’s a whole generation of people now very excited about hearing about the message of freedom." [87]

Republican support for pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani is dropping like a stone. Giuliani "has seen a dramatic erosion in his support, which now stands at its lowest point of the year, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Giuliani's support dropped from 37% in a July poll to 28% in the latest (national) survey, and his decline from February has been even more sharp. Then, he had the backing of 53% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and had a better than 2 to 1 advantage over his closest rival."Washington Post excerpt

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani picks libertarians (Ted Olson and Miguel Estrada) and an executive (Larry Thompson), all likely to be pro-choice, to head his panel for nominating judges.[90] Olson opposed conservativeJohn Roberts in 1982 on limiting jurisdiction, [91] and Estrada applied RICO against abortion protesters and forced open the airwaves to profanity. The neoconservative (socially liberal) Power Line blog deadpans, "It would be hard to come up with a group of lawyers and judges that would be more reassuring to conservatives in this regard." It isn't that "hard" to find real pro-lifers.

Tom Tancredo

"Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo announced Monday he won't seek a sixth term in Congress from Colorado next year, saying he has succeeded in making illegal immigration a national issue. But Tancredo said he will continue his long-shot bid for the White House and hinted that if that fails, he would consider running for the Senate."[95]

Other

Will the Values Summit rally behind a conservative presidential candidate? "Over 2,000 social conservatives are expected to attend the Oct. 19-21 values voter summit in Washington, where eight Republican presidential hopefuls will address the largest gathering of pro-family activists."[96]